Quicksand
by Akari Kou
Summary: Lying in hospital after the Promised Day, Riza Hawkeye tries to unsnarl memories, motifs and underlying emotions of the past weeks to regain her footing ... to no avail. There is someone who never got the memo. Post Promised Day. Mangaverse.


**Date:** 18.01.2016  
 **Rating:** T (suitable for 13+); slightly potty mouth and mention of grave injuries  
 **Fandom:** Fullmetal Alchemist  
 **Genre:** Angst, Romance  
 **Pairing:** RoyAi  
 **Warning:** spoilers for end of manga series

 **Quicksand**

It felt different, this time. She'd been drifting in and out of consciousness several times, but this time reality seemed to stick longer than usual. This time she could even hear faint noises and see light.

Riza Hawkeye tried to focus. There was a good chance she might stay conscious long enough to get a bearing of her surroundings.

She concentrated on the noises first: faint whooshing of air, an intermittent beeping sound and soft footfalls somewhere far away and probably outside. The air was cool and smelled funny.

Prison?

She cracked open her eyes a bit, closed them again, wincing – her lids felt like sandpaper – and opened them again. She could see things; night had probably fallen, but it was not totally dark around her. Through curtains covering a window to her right shimmered pale light, probably moonlight. She saw naked walls, glinting metal contraptions, a white bed underneath her with bunched-up curtains to her left.

Looked like a hospital room. Shit. Her visceral memory was already halfway through the steps of rolling to her feet and jumping out of bed, but her body remained unmoving. Something was wrong. She drew a deep breath. _Come on, Riza. Think before you act._

She was in the hospital, because? She had to be either sick or injured. A short self-appraisal: her neck burned and itched horribly. As she lifted her right hand to touch the spot, an infusion needle stuck in it. The left hand was unmovable, as was her head. She had difficulty breathing and felt woozy. It was hard to concentrate on one train of thoughts. There was a tepid taste on her tongue as well. Painkillers? Blood loss?

More memories emerged: Blood loss, that was it. Her throat got cut, she'd lost blood. Much blood. So much blood. There had been blood, noise and fire. Fire …

The memories were now a rush of images and sensations: The Promised Day. Battle against the Homunculi. Chimaeras. The Elric brothers. The Colonel, badly hurt and struck blind.

That last part jogged her visceral memory once more. Her last memory of Colonel Mustang was him, blind, exhausted, bleeding heavily from gashes in his wrists. Somebody had taken care of him, presumably? He was far more important than she was, so if she was in hospital, he'd have to be, too. Blind. She was his supposed bodyguard, he needed her help more than ever.

Riza bit her lip until the pain helped her focus even better. She needed to find him. For how long had she been lying around unconscious? Probably at least several days, judging from the stiffness in her limbs. What happened in the meantime? What happened to him?

He _should_ be in the same room as her, as always. He was probably the only field officer who regularly waived the luxuries of a private room – usually available for his rank – for the sake of remaining united with his team members. If he'd been unconscious upon hospitalization, the others should've made sure that Team Mustang always stayed together.

So, where was he? The curtain was blocking her view on the left side, so she tried to turn her head to the right first, towards the window.

The puckering pain in her neck grew into a sharp-searing sensation. Her head was not locked in, but the neck was heavily bandaged, impeding her movement. They'd probably had to sew her blood vessels and sinews back together. Not an injury to be trifled with. So it was probably necessary to move very slowly and carefully. She didn't want to tear it all open again. Still, she _had_ to look.

Very slowly she twisted her neck as far as she felt comfortable and then rolled her eyes as far as she could. Another bed came into view. Someone else lay in it - most likely Colonel Mustang. It was either him or nobody at all. Good.

She rolled her head back onto the pillow. The opposite wall came back into sight. She could see clearer now, more details; her eyes had adjusted to the light and the room had stopped sliding in and out of focus. That meant more options for her.

Now what? Could she get up, maybe?

She slid her feet to the side until they dangled over the edge of the mattress and tried to roll over, keeping her neck as straight as possible. The room began spinning immediately, triggering a strong wave of nausea. Oh. Oh, no. No.

She gulped a few times until the queasiness subsided. Then, very slowly, she eased herself onto her back and pulled her feet back onto the mattress bit by bit. Even this little movement left her breathless.

There was no sense in trying anything like that again. For now she was immobile.

Since getting up was out of the question, should she try to alert someone? Then again, someone coming in might wake the Colonel. He needed his strength even more than she did and there was nothing really wrong with her. She was just awake now, for a change.

She should probably try to catch a bit more sleep; she might need it soon. A few more deep breaths allowed her to fall into some kind of doze. With it, the pictures of blood and noise and fire returned, but she was well used to nightmares and hopefully she'd be fast asleep soon.

Still … _that moment when those string puppets jumped at her, grabbing her by her arms, grabbing the Colonel, threatening him with their blades … she yelled and struggled in a futile attempt to reach for him. One of the puppets raises his sword …_

Rrrrrak!

Her heart jumped and jolted her back into consciousness. That grating noise – part of her dreams? No. She'd never woken up from a nightmare before - that was kind of the problem -, so it had to have been real. Straining her ears, she heard a new noise: faint shuffling.

 _He's awake!_ Her thoughts immediately jumped to the correct explanation. Out of the corner of her eyes, movement became visible. A dark silhouette appeared: yes, definitely the Colonel. Automatically, all of her focus zeroed in on his person. Any sign of danger?

He was walking into her field of vision by himself, but moving slowly and hesitantly, arms outstretched and shuffling his feet across the ground to feel out potential obstacles. The hospital gown was hanging off his frame, accentuating hanging shoulders and a considerable loss of weight. It was also tied incorrectly, but how could he even know – or fix it?

The idea still felt like a kick to the stomach. Colonel Mustang - the person with the most far-reaching visions - sightless. There had to be some kind of cruel irony to it all, but she didn't appreciate anything about it.

This couldn't be the end of it. It might be only temporary. Or there had to be a way to fix his condition. Someone might be able to heal him. Modern medicine, alchemy, whatever, however, just … Hopefully there was a way and hopefully soon, soon …

CLUNK! Colonel Mustang hissed painfully as the wastebin rolled across the floor. She winced in sympathy. Even from her distance she noticed the tiny, frustrated crease between his eyebrows. That was his Ishval face. And right now she couldn't do anything at all. To lie tied to her bed as her blind and angry Colonel fought to cover just a few paces to the washroom went against her every instinct, desire and belief.

She knew what came now. _Here we go again._ As always recently, along with grief, helplessness and fury emerged their, now familiar, stepsiblings: fondness, pity and longing. Squeezing her eyes shut, Riza let her head fall back and balled her fists so firmly that her fingernails dug painfully into her palms. Watching him literally hurt her that much, in all imaginable ways. This _didn't help_ either of them in this situation, just added insult to injury.

And here she'd thought she'd been over him.

All right, her reason had lapsed several times before. In fact, _all_ the events leading up to the Promised Day brought an onslaught of chaotic and unwanted emotions. She'd thought it was all part and parcel with their actions: They'd overthrown the government, faced a superhuman threat and each had found themselves in mortal danger several times. For weeks they'd ridden on a continuous rush of adrenaline that left everybody tetchy and short-fused. And, in her case, far less resilient than usual.

That one time she'd broken down, crying uncontrollably after her altercation with Lust, had been that phase's all-time low. She'd believed the Colonel dead and her anguish triggered feelings she never thought she even possessed and definitely knew were forbidden. Their strength submerged even her self-restraint.

And, oh God, of course he'd seen and heard her.

She'd been perversely grateful for the firestorm he'd unleashed on his enemy. It gave her a chance to claw back some shreds of self-control and hide her face from his sharp glance, at least for as long as she needed to re-arrange her face into her usual deadpan.

She'd known she had crossed a line then. His stern scolding, afterwards, had confirmed as much – and he was completely right to reject any feelings he now knew she harboured for him. This, too, she was grateful for. The pain of rejection was nothing but beneficial, it removed the elephant from the room and enabled her to focus on her recovery.

His integrity brought peace of mind; her emotions, on the other hand, she could handle from there. That's what she'd thought.

Except, she hadn't. It hadn't. And it didn't help that she had, in turn, reason to doubt the strength of _his_ resolve – or at least to accuse him of ambiguity. After she'd almost shot him in the tunnels underneath Central, his words had been "I can't afford to lose you", but his face had said something terrifyingly heart-wrenching. She also had dim memories of lying in his arms, across his lap, but she'd almost convinced herself that those were probably figments of her shock and loss of blood.

Either way, she was far from stable right now. She needed time, and she needed for him to be his former upright, steel-hearted and righteous self. In time, her confusion would subside again. Hopefully.

SNIK.

The door to the washroom opened again. Colonel Mustang reappeared. He seemed to wait and listen for a moment and she carefully faked even breathing. Seemingly satisfied, he started walking – but turned away from the direction of his bed and shuffled instead towards her.

Riza tightened the corners of her mouth. Why? Even if it had been just a few days after he'd lost his sight, he should have familiarized himself with the layout of this room enough to find his bed. He'd found the restroom with no problem, after all.

And he did move as if he did. There was no hesitation in his steps. A few more shuffled feet towards the foot of her bed, then his toes collided with the steel frame. She winced again – that was how she'd broken a toe back home, light-years ago -, but he seemed to have expected the impact. Almost as if …

She forced herself to scan his face for signs of trouble. Nobody could read him as well as she could. His face looked pinched and tired, but not particularly confused. Had he really not noticed? Once again two conflicting instincts battled within her mind. She had to help him. From where he stood now he'd have difficulties navigating various obstacles back to his bed. Worse, he might stumble and fall. On the other hand:

She didn't want him to know she was awake, had been for some time, in fact, and was watching him. She didn't want to confront him _at all_ , not with him in his state and not with her in hers.

Meanwhile the Colonel had got a hold of her bed railing and was using it to lead himself further along - into the wrong direction still. He'd almost reached her saline drip. A few paces further and he was about to walk headlong into the wall. Blindly. With a potentially broken nose and everything.

That decided it. She caved. Embarrassment aside, he was going to hurt himself. She lifted her right hand and curled her fingers lightly around his wrist.

"Sir …. wrong …direction." Her voice was practically gone. A gravelly rasp, nothing more.

But he heard her and as he replied, his voice sounded hoarse, but more lively that she'd expected. Surprise lit it up, and probably relief as well. It was the well-being of anybody except himself that mattered to him first. It was how he rolled.

"Lieutenant! You're awake."

"Colonel," this time her voice defied her completely. She tried again.

"Colo-nel."

He chided her lightly. "Hawkeye, for Heaven's sake, you were unconscious for a whole week. Don't strain yourself."

A week.

"Under .. orders .. not to die … sir."

He sat down next to her: her mattress dipped and she smelled ash. But he didn't answer immediately. Finally …

"Yeah, you are. And I still hold you to that order. We're not done yet."

"..s, Sir."

"I need you."

"Yes, sir."

"Hawkeye …"

Her instinct warned her with a churl in her stomach. Whatever he wanted to say, it had the potential to go horribly wrong. She scrambled to revive her usual capability to re-direct - often goofy, but now, not so much - conversations.

"How … are … the … others?" she asked and added a bit more strength to her voice. It twinged, but sounded as strict as she needed it to. Talking went easier like that.

He sighed. "As well as can be expected. No problematic injuries; none of them is still in hospital."

"They should … faked injuries … to stay," she said, frowning. "Should be easier … to find … medical literature." It became easier to slip back into their usual back-and forth. Crisis averted.

"Medical literature?"

"Of course … sir." How far he might have come in accepting the damage to his eyes? Knowing him: Far. He could handle a direct mention. "Find way … fix eyes."

Short pause. "You don't know." He didn't sound concerned at all.

She replied with a toneless exhalation.

"Sure, you couldn't have heard. Marcoh is going to try to fix them. He's got parts of his Philosopher's Stone he wants to use on my eyes."

" _Marcoh_!"

"He will _try_ to, at the very least." His voice still sounded blasé. It was the good kind of blasé, the one he used to hide his overabundant optimism. Still, she needed reassurance.

She couldn't speak, just clutched his wrist tighter and watched his face. He was smiling, again: the good kind of smile. He'd never been any less than honest with her, so that meant – he was speaking the truth?

"He did have some stipulations for me," he continued. "I was happy to comply and he will be much more interested in me succeeding than not, the sly dog. So he's probably pretty sure he'll be able to do it." His voice sounded even stronger. "AND right now he will hopefully be taking care of Havoc. That damned cigarette-huffing idiot will be back with us soon – although, if I were Havoc, I'd ask Marcoh for a new lung, while he were at it."

A short, giddy huff of laughter escaped her throat. It hurt, but she didn't care right now. It'd been a while since she'd heard good news, she needed a bit of levity right now. It made her more even-minded. "So … your case … new sense of responsibility?"

He was quietly joining her in her laughter. "Yes, absolutely. And my slashed hands, that really hurts. And the creaking in my joints, because that's making me feel older than I have any right to be. He should completely overhaul me; I'm a wreck."

His hands. Oh, no! She was still clinging to his wrist; that had to hurt him. She loosened her grip and made to withdraw her hand.

Before she had a chance to do so, however, he twisted his arm and grabbed her wrist in turn – in a movement as neatly and with little fuss as if he'd just apprehended a criminal.

She didn't know how to react.

"No," he said calmly before she'd uttered any other sound. "Sorry, Hawkeye, I will need to borrow your hand for a while longer."

He was moving much more slowly now. Almost leisurely he pulled his hand back, loosening his grip on her wrist. As if in a stupor, she watched his fingertips slide across her palm, felt him curl his fingers against it. She became hyper-aware of the touch of his bare skin on hers. Every tiny movement sent a jolt through her nerves.

As he searched for, and threaded his fingertips through, the joints of her fingers, she still had not managed to say something. His behavior was so completely outside of the range of everything normal between them that, had she even been able to control her voice, she lacked a proper script.

"This is sudden, sorry," he explained while she fought to bring the tingling in her arms under control. "It suddenly occurred to me I'd not gone to you to joke around."

Her voice was back to non-existence. It didn't have to do much with her injury, though.

"I know what you just did. I know why you derailed. And I'm sorry for this, but I won't help you do it any longer. In fact, if you're looking for resistance from me, I'm sorry, I don't have any left," he finally murmured. "You've probably noticed. There have been lapses and I'm sorry for that, too."

"Sir…" Too late. The elephant was back in the room. No, worse, it stopped being an elephant in favour of being a _(c-o-n-f-i-r-m-e-d)_ monstrosity now. The Colonel voice sounded calmer than he had any right to.

"This isn't something Marcoh will be able to help with, neither. I doubt this is as fixable as the physical rest." And after a leaden pause: "I'm sorry. This is probably not a good moment for me to tell you."

Her whole body started to shake. Her fingers, too, so he had to be aware of her upset. She was still deciding whether it was a good kind of upset or not. Why couldn't her mind stop being so analytical?

"Hawkeye, say something."

She inhaled to answer _(what, exactly?)_ , but he hastily interrupted: "No, wait. Don't speak. Sorry, this is me being selfish again."

He huffed some kind of self-deprecating laugh and continued quickly, as if he were afraid of her using her voice _(her non-existent voice)_ _(or hearing her answer) (her still non-existent answer)_.

"Think about this, Hawkeye. It doesn't make sense for us to keep going on like that. Anti-fraternization rules are supposed to prevent favoritism in my decisions. But I'm already too far gone. I would have even asked for that human transmutation. ASKED for the greatest sin known to my kind, Hawkeye. And you knew, didn't you? You gave me this LOOK."

Oh, yes. She'd forgotten his facial expression. Another point adding up to what she didn't want to be aware of. It had torn her heart. It tore hear heart now. Because she would have to say "no". Or transfer to a different division.

But, dear God, he was actually confessing his _feelings_ to her. Well, no, he was just removing the thin veneer of plausible deniability. Knowing him as well as she did, one was as good as the other.

 _Wow._

He squeezed her fingers lightly once more before letting go of them (and "pop" went another array of electric jolts in her stomach, each with each of his fingers sliding loose). Slowly he rose from his seat, saying, in a lighter tone of voice: "We'll talk soon, when everything's back to normal _(what kind of "normal" was he alluding to, now?!)_. We'll talk it all through until we find a good solution. As long as it keeps you close to me, though."

He was wrapping up this conversation and she had not yet said a thing. Panic rose in her. He'd think _(what exactly? Neither option sounded particularly inviting between heartbreak and heartbreak)_... She had to say something.

 _Say something!_

"What makes … think … reciprocate?" she finally croaked out. Pain tearing up her throat she coughed until tears came to her eyes. His hand was back on her bedspread _(not her skin, though, thankfully)_.

"Come on, Hawkeye, " he said gently and a little bit sadly as well. "Do you think it's been easy to fake indifference in the face of your tears, back in the catacombs? You, my unflappable sniper champion, crying? I'd been hoping you'd return to your usual calm demeanor, but it turned out you didn't. And how could you be expected to?"

Riza closed her eyes. She didn't need to see the half-sad, half hopeful face he probably wore right now. There was no way she was going to sleep this night. She chose to say nothing. There wasn't anything she could or should say that wouldn't make matter infinitely worse. For him. For herself. For both of them. Or for their respective integrity. _(Because she could say "yes". Could.)_

As he shuffled back to his bed, familiar enough with the surroundings of her bed so as make another open speculation redundant, she couldn't help but smile grimly at another piece of cruel irony. Each of them'd hoped the other would provide an anchor. But it turned out that they were both sitting in the same decrepit boat and each of them had chucked their anchor away.

~ End~


End file.
